Monday, September 24, 2007

When you make Latin food, which type of pan(dering) should you use?

When you’re in the food-service industry like I am (see: Beefy Yakov’s Slaughterhouse and Used Plastic Tarp Emporium) there are a lot of government-mandated safety and sanitation regulations you must follow. This requires taking classes on proper food handling, followed by tests to prove you’re competent enough to provide the public with edibles that won’t leave them shitbarfing for a month. This training process tends to be a little on the lengthy side, but, thankfully, Yakov isn’t one to jeopardize profit-earning potential to satisfy another paranoid government regulatory department.

Instead of making his employees take all the normal food-safety courses, Yakov requires all new employees to watch a bunch of Food Network shows he recorded on his nephew’s Tivo. The list of shows looks quite daunting at first, but Yakov says it’s ok to fast forward through all of Rachel Ray’s excessive gesturing—that alone knocks a couple of hours off the overall time it takes to finish.

After you watch all the Food Network shows on the Tivo, Yakov comes in and says something like, “Right. So, you promise not to stick pecker in cow parts, right? Of course you won’t. Yakov doesn’t hire goddamned perverts. That’s why his brother still unemployed.” Yes, sometimes Yakov speaks in the third person.

Anyway, while I was completing Yakov’s training course, I caught up with all the controversy surrounding the most recent season of The Next Food Network Star. This shit all went down a while ago when the show first aired (you probably didn’t hear about it because the show is retard-pissing-his-pants dumb, and the only people that watch it are the people that have to watch it as part of their food-handler’s training) and revolved around a precocious and doughy contestant named Joshua Adam Garcia, or JAG, as he called himself.

Eventually, he was dismissed from the show—or quit the show, depending on who you ask—even though he was one of the finalists. The reason: he was a dirty fuckin’ liar. He said he was a marine, and he actually was, but he exaggerated the hell out of his rank and claimed he served in Afghanistan, which he didn’t. In fact, he was discharged for what the press has called a “hazing incident.” I don’t know what that means, but, based on JAG’s behavior on the show, I’m just going to assume it involved a rectum full of military-issue soap bars and a barrack full of marines pissed off that they had to watch JAG cram them up himself with a sheathed bayonet. Another one of JAG’s lies was that he finished culinary school. He never did—some bullshit like that, anyway, I’m not going to research this inane folderol.

So, with his head drooped in epicene disgrace, JAG walked out of the Food Network studio, losing the reality show contest to a curly haired broad hopelessly and irritatingly obsessed with Paris and all things French. Meh [Editor’s Note: “meh” is a word used to represent the sound one makes when he doesn’t care enough to use words to form complete sentences]. Life goes on, and nobody except bored trophy wives likely to buy Rachel Ray’s cookbooks and fantasize about Tyler Florence even knows anything so scandalous took place.

However, while watching the drama unfold like an origami swan made by an arthritic factory worker with a total of seven fingers, I noticed another controversy. (To be fair, it’s hardly a controversy, but if I said it was as boring as the rest of this crap, would you even continue reading?)

In one of the episodes near the finale, the three remaining contestants—JAG, the curly haired Francophile, and a blonde Yakov refers to as horseface—went on some radio show to see how well they would maintain composure under the pressure of being grilled [Editor’s Note: this terrible food joke was completely unintentional] by two zany DJs on live radio.

During JAG’s interview, the following exchange took place:

JAG: “I’m the one that’s going to bring out Latino Caribe cuisine to the world. It’s not really, uh, represented, you know, as much as I would like it to be, so … it’s either for two reasons: You can’t do it, or, you know, you’re not interested.”

Radio Show Host: “So you think that’s misrepresented on the Food Network?”

JAG: “Uh, you know, I don’t think it’s represented as much as it could be. Uh, you know, and I’m here to try and bring that out.”

Sweet disappointed Jewish mother of Judas! If there’s one thing network executives don’t want to be accused of it’s racial insensitivity/exclusion/misrepresentation/stereotyping/exploiting. Needless to say, the show’s judges—Food Network executives—were none to pleased with JAG’s comments and spent a good amount of time explaining how wrong he was and just how ethnically diverse the Food Network on-air personalities are.

Executive 1: “Goddamnit, JAG! We do so represent Latinos with our programs!”Executive 2: “Yeah, we’re totally into all that racial stuff.”JAG: “Come on, vatos. You know that no es verdad. Show me La Raza, or you can kiss my culo!”Executive 1: “Look here, JAG, there’s enough ethnic diversity here to choke a goddamned Rainbow Coalition.”Executive 2: “Goddamned right.”JAG: “Que pasa?”Executive 1: “Well, shit, Giada’s a hook-nosed Roman, Emeril’s half Bridge Troll, Paula Dean is inbred …”Executive 2: “She’s right out of The Hills Have Eyes, really.JAG: “Ay caramba!”Executive 1: “Robert Irvine is a Brit, Sandra Lee is a WASP …”JAG: “How is that ethnic in any way, cabron?”Evecutive 2: “She’s a WASP robot built as an inside joke between a few African-American scientists.”Executive 1: “Tyler Florence—or TyFlo, as the cool kids refer to him—is a Nephilim …”JAG: “A what?”Executive 2: “A hybrid being created during the sticky, unholy pelvic union of a fallen angel and a human woman, JAG.”Executive 1: “Hell, I myself am a gay Jew, Mario Batali is a fat nerd, Cat Cora’s a hermaphrodite, Guy Fieri’s a time-traveling alien, Morimoto is some kind of Asian, Duff Goldman has been a chipmunk man since he got bitten by that radioactive chipmunk that escaped from Alton Brown’s dressing room, and Rachael Ray is, well, it’s better that you didn’t know the truth about her terrifying origins.”Executive 2: “I wish I didn’t know. Yeesh!”JAG: “But where (pauses to salsa dance) are all the Latinos?”Exexutive 1: “Well, Bobby Flay is a Latino. I mean, technically he’s Irish or something, but he uses blue corn like a Mexican.”Executive 2: “He loooooves blue corn, JAG.”JAG: “That is not bueno enough. Bobby Flay may be my hero and the object of my secret homosexual fantasies, but he is not a Latino.”Executive 2: “We stand by our previous claim that Latinos are well represented on our fine network. We appreciate your concerns, though.”Executive 1: “Yeah, and you’re not getting eliminated from the show this round, so just keep your mouth shut, capice?”JAG: “Arrrrriba!”

19 comments:

I don't watch much Food Network myself. Except at night, of course. I like to turn the TV on when I go to bed to block out the sounds of my next door neighbors fighting. Otherwise I'll lay awake counting the number of times he calls her a slut and she calls him a no good loser. And then comes the inevitable squealing of bed springs ugh! Then I have to count the number of squeaks until she starts screaming and he starts moaning. Jeez, it takes forever. I think he must be popping Viagra.

The only Food Network show I really like is Good Eats. Bizarre Foods is another good one but I forget what channel that's on.

prunella jones – You know what? That might very well be ol’ Rachael in a wig, sporting a silly Miamian-Latina accent. After all, she’s everywhere else these days. Just the other night I saw her at cemetery, running around in circles while dousing herself with buckets of goat’s blood. Then she said some weird prayer of gratitude to Satan and jabbed herself in the thigh with a broken wine bottle. At that point, Oprah came out of the bathroom and said, “No problem, you crazy bitch. Now, let’s go get some pizza.” Of course, I was a fool to think I would get away from Rachael Ray in a graveyard after midnight.

It sounds like your neighbors need to cram a silencer in it. I find that writing a polite, yet firm, note explaining the noise problem and asking them to try and keep it down is a great way to get results. There’s a good chance they aren’t even aware their domestic exploits can be heard by the neighbors. In fact, upon realizing that, they might be so embarrassed they’ll move away. At the very least, they’ll probably tone it down. If not, bust her front teeth out with a shotgun barrel while he watches, and blast one of his kneecaps before you leave. Problem solved. Hello peace and quiet. It’s amazing the results you’ll get if only you ask politely with a hint of firmness.

erica ap – Does Botox make you speak with a Latina accent Jennifer Lopez would be proud to sport in her next movie to, you know, remind everyone where she came from or something?

neko – Yeah, it’s pretty filthy. But, hey, Nephilim have sweet powers. Tyler Florence, for example, talks with his mouth full constantly for no good reason and has hair that looks shower-wet every second of the day. Beats the fuck out of being half vampire, doesn’t it?

angela – Then I suppose you wouldn’t be interested in purchasing the uncut and extended version of it from my webstore. I don’t want to give too much away, but in that version, Emeril finally slips and calls an audience member the n-word.

By the way, thanks for stopping by my blog just to criticize the length of my latest post. I’ll be by your blog later to talk shit about your most recent post (it looks like it’s put on some weight—just sayin’).

"Duff Goldman has been a chipmunk man since he got bitten by that radioactive chipmunk"

I should try to get bitten by a radioactive lesbian, because then I could be Lesbian Man, which would be cool because then I would have my own boobies and would be much better at rugby. I wonder if getting bitten by a radioactive midget would make you shorter?

The Food Network has that Emiril guy, he's probably Italian, but he could pass for Cuban, like Pacino did in Scar Face. That should count for something.

captain smack – Aren’t all lesbians radioactive? One of my co-workers, a Ukranian fellow named Dimitri, always says, “All lesbos have mercury poisoning, because their diets so high in the fish.” Then he laughs really hard, slaps me on the back, and drinks shots of vodka with Yakov. These people will laugh at anything. But I guess bashing cow skulls all day will make you a little giddy. And I don’t know if getting bitten by a radioactive midget would make you shorter, but it would probably give you scabies … or warts.

ubermouth -- If eating gas station sandwiches and vegetable scraps from the apartment dumpster is beneath you, I shant beg for your company. I may eat garbage, but I'm not going to beg. I have my pride, after all.

Angela must be sensitive to criticism, too, because her blog is accessible to invited readers only. How unfortunate that I can't visit her blog and tell her to cram a telephone pole, sideways.

Thanks for your suggestion. I did write a polite but firm note to my neighbors, letting them know that I could hear their bedroom hijinks. I even checked with an etiquette book to make sure I worded everything correctly. Then I tied the note to a large rock and smashed it through their bedroom window. It got them to pipe down a little bit, but now my mom is pissed at me. I forgot to mention that my mom is the one living upstairs from me with her new boytoy, Gary. He is a 46 year old, divorced, father of five with no job and a bad case of Tourette's Syndrome. Really nothing to write home about, but my mom is all proud to be shagging a dude who's almost twenty years her junior. I can't imagine what it is he does that makes her scream so, but I need my sleep, so I was thinking of stealing his Viagra pills and replacing them with Alli or something. Then I heard that Viagra is being manufactured in China now, so I'll just wait for the lead paint, asbestos, and nuculear waste the pills are sure to contain to kill him.

I hope you are doing well with your sobriety, Morb. I know from experience that moving is very stressful and I hope you are taking care of yourself. (Sorry, it's hard for me to mind my own business)

I recently tried substituting some pills for hyperactive little freaks that I found at the health food store, for Adderall. They don't really work, but they do mess with my brain a little. It's like the other night I was watching an old episode of Roseanne. It was the one where she beats her husband and kids, and then sets the house on fire after sealing the exits. I was happy that I'd finally gotten to see the series end, since I keep missing that one, but it turned out that I had hallucinated the whole thing. At least I think that's what happened.

prunella – I sympathize with you regarding your mother and her noisy antics with Gary. Something similar happened to me with my great grandmother. She started seeing this younger (86) fellow herself. He was a Native-American craftsman named Zachariah Bitterbud. He made a lot of walking sticks, which were basically just tree branches he painted with Kelly-Moore water-repellent deck varnish. His specialty item was a turtle-shell rattle. They looked really tacky, but it was always funny to watch the old bastard stomp on the turtles to splatter the meat out of the shells. Also, I suspect he wasn’t really Native American so much as an old white guy with a beard that liked to say he was part Cherokee.

Anyway, they used to make a lot of noise in his camper when they parked in my driveway during their visits. It scared the neighborhood cats to death. It sort of worked itself out, though, and she left him for a younger Italian shoe maker. I think old Zachariah ended up moving to Oregon to open a business airbrushing wolves howling at the full moon on the sides of vans. I’m sure things will work out with your mother, too.

Yeah, the sobriety is going as well as can be expected. I tell ya, I’d kill for a whiskey most of the time, which is almost ironic because that’s how I used to get booze before I was legal. On the plus side, since even a little bit of alcohol could kill me at this point, I had the emergency cyanide tablet removed from my tooth and replaced with an everclear tablet. I suppose it’s sort of my Sword of Damocles. I find myself drinking a lot of sugar-free, carb-free energy drinks these days, which is completely fucking pointless because caffeine has no effect one me. I guess I just get all nostalgic buying 24 oz. cans from the liquor store. I’m a simple creature, really. Some famous guy once said something like “we are all but slaves to our passions,” but he was probably some gay foreigner and I refuse to be a slave to anything.

I’ve never seen that particular episode of Roseanne but it sounds pretty sweet. I did see the one where Roseanne declared herself a disciple of hell, butchered her family, cannibalized them, and then turned into a three-headed hellbeast, eventually destroying her neighborhood. Then I think the guy that played Ernest in all those movies showed up on the dragon from The Never-Ending Story and slayed her with a twelve-foot-long sword shaped like the Washington Monument. I’ll send you an e-mail next time that episode is on.

newyorkmoments -- A guy I know got food poisoning from an In and Out Burger recently. That's what happens when you go through their drive-through at one in the morning when they just want to close and go home. He should have known there would be trouble when he found a human tooth in his burger and his receipt said "Enjoy the ptomaine, sucker!" but he was pretty hungry.